Architectural education is structured, within the design studio, through a precise sequence of reviews that articulate the process into successive stages of definition and verification: desk critiques, formalised intermediate assessments, and final presentations. Far from constituting mere organisational steps, these occasions form a structural component of disciplinary learning, insofar as they establish the field within which the project is exposed to judgement and measured against an interpretative instance, whether internal or external to the teaching body. In this sense, the review configures itself as a regulated device of confrontation, in which the student’s design production – individual or collective – engages with the critical apparatus of the instructors, thereby acquiring a public and shared form. The project, withdrawn from the isolated dimension of individual work, is thus inscribed within a discursive sphere that renders explicit its premises, intentions, and consequences.

Concurrently, the review assumes an explicitly performative character, to the extent that it requires the student to construct and sustain an articulated position, anticipating conditions and modalities proper to professional practice. From this perspective, it operates as a testing ground in which representational capacities, clarity of exposition, and design coherence are subjected to simultaneous scrutiny. At the same time, reviews constitute one of the principal experiential dispositifs of architectural education, within which knowledge is constructed through a situated and embodied confrontation. They contribute decisively to the formation of an educational memory, sedimented through a sequence of experiences that exert a profound influence on learning processes, both in their successful outcomes and in their critical aspects.

Within this framework, the journal seeks to move beyond a treatment confined to the survey of exemplary cases or the systematisation of existing debate, positioning itself as a site for the expansion and redefinition of the very concept of the review. Its aim is to welcome contributions capable of interrogating this practice in relation to contexts, devices, and operative conditions, thereby offering a plural and situated reading.

In particular, contributions are invited that investigate alternative modes of critique capable of challenging established forms of review, adapting or reformulating them in response to the contemporary transformations of design education. From this standpoint, it becomes necessary to interrogate also the implicit premises and asymmetries that structure these moments, making explicit the mechanisms of authority and power that traverse them and condition their outcomes.

We are interested in contributions that specifically engage with:
- recognizing common traits in contemporary international pedagogical experiences;
- exemplifying, through their conceptualization, specific didactic experiences, through reports, dialogues and interviews with internationally renowned professors, capable of becoming synthetic and effective expressions of a teaching know-how;
- tracing a limit that can be shared by the scientific community, within which to critically “position” ideas and (didactic) projects.

Abstracts in English or Italian (max. 1500 characters, with one keyword before the title), three images and a biography of 350 characters for each author should be submitted (in .doc file) to: redazionestoajournal.com

Accepted abstracts will be announced by 11/05/2026.

The call is open to PhD students, researchers, professors and all scholars academically involved in teaching architecture.

Contributions accepted for publication in the printed journal are expected by 29/06/2026 in the form of a scientific essay, accompanied by notes, bibliography and images, for a maximum of 20,000 characters (spaces, notes and bibliography included) and 7 images/pictures (of which you own the copyright of if they are free for use).

The proposed article must be original in its content. It should have not been published in another print or digital journal or book.

Accepted essays in their final version will undergo a process of Double-Blind Peer Review.

stoà is a Class A scientific journal for the sectors 08/D1 Architectural Design and 08/E2 Restoration and History of Architecture (Resolution No. 49 by the National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes - ANVUR, 20.02.2025) and a scientific journal for non-bibliometric areas 08 - “Civil Engineering and Architecture” (Resolution No. 184 by the National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes - ANVUR, 27.07.2023).